Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on May 30, 2005 07:49 AM
1. Fraud:
Examples include spreading FUD, such as MS used to defeat DR-DOS; lying about your own products, such as MS claiming that J++ was cross-platform, and compatible with Java, when it was actually designed to lock users into Windows; and falsified studies, such as MS is currently using against Linux.
I agree with much of the above, but must add that if their competitors are not willing or capable of protecting their assets (which Sun did prove capable in the case of Java) then thats their problem. The GPL and all the rest are there for this very reason.
In other words : a society without an army is some kind of utopia, and is doomed. If linux can't raise an army (of lawers or anti-FUD spinmeisters or whatever) then it should quit right now.
It should quit anyway simply for being a monolithic kernel (what a bad bad choice, and so obviously bad). At least Windows got that one right even if they don't have condition variables (a threading construct that's kinda critical). [apologies for the programmer's perspective that just crept in there].
2. Extortion:
The main example of this, rampant throughout the computer industry, is locking up customers' data in secret file formats.[snip]
i.e. locking up customers' data on central servers, where it can only be access via secret<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.Net protocols.
I can't think of any examples of where this is true (not being able to get at one's own data), though I believe their are some. In the case of the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.net example it would seem to me to strike the balance between freedom and money: you can get your data but must assent to a strictly controlled protocol. (I can think of some good reasons for favouring the strict control indpenedent of MS's bank balance).
If the law went after the specific things, when they occur, then there would be no need for the antitrust laws
I disagree with this simpy because I reckon that to follow the spirit of what you are suggesting would result in an infinite number of laws and fantastic complexity forcing and the standardising of particular opinions. Further forcing a model of law more akin to the German system of being able to do what the law says you can and anything else is illegal, rather than the US/UK model which is the reverse.
When I ask for better laws I personally want a mature broadening; a re-evaluation in the light of experience. Better still for the law to retract its (overly-specific) claws and become more abstract (in the light of maturity/experience), thereby covering more with less (as you also suggest later).
Mid-life crises are not always a bad thing. And that, I think, is what the US and UK are facing.
[...]and when MS made J++ incompatible in order to "pollute" Java.
From a programmers perspective the change MS made was actually quite marvellous. I reckon it was only bloody-mindedness and pride on the part of Gosling or Sun that didn't see MS's change adopted into standard Java. I would have chosen to program in Java if MS had also re-oriented Java's truly horrible exception model (checked exceptions; nasty!).
In my view MS, when it has "embraced" the competition, has almost always produced a most excellent refinement of their competitors idea (IE is an excellent example). They called almost be called a model of the civilised jungle.
Perhaps the solution to the law problem is to unify the French system (spirit of the law) with the Anglo-Saxon (letter of the law), which are usually considered mutually exclusive, but I bet that one day a holy genius will demonstrate that they are not.
In classical christian theology (I'm a thomistic catholic) its all about union. Apply union and the solution presents itself. Its rather like magnetic poles; they are only mutually exlusive in a narrow sense - but really they are two distinctions of the same singularity. Quite unlike opposites of absence, like light and darkness, good and evil (the absence of good), a union of which results in compromise (oh horror!), instead of a balance.
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Re:Capitalism, the Law, and Microsoft
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 30, 2005 07:49 AMI agree with much of the above, but must add that if their competitors are not willing or capable of protecting their assets (which Sun did prove capable in the case of Java) then thats their problem. The GPL and all the rest are there for this very reason.
In other words : a society without an army is some kind of utopia, and is doomed. If linux can't raise an army (of lawers or anti-FUD spinmeisters or whatever) then it should quit right now.
It should quit anyway simply for being a monolithic kernel (what a bad bad choice, and so obviously bad). At least Windows got that one right even if they don't have condition variables (a threading construct that's kinda critical). [apologies for the programmer's perspective that just crept in there].
I can't think of any examples of where this is true (not being able to get at one's own data), though I believe their are some. In the case of the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.net example it would seem to me to strike the balance between freedom and money: you can get your data but must assent to a strictly controlled protocol. (I can think of some good reasons for favouring the strict control indpenedent of MS's bank balance).
I disagree with this simpy because I reckon that to follow the spirit of what you are suggesting would result in an infinite number of laws and fantastic complexity forcing and the standardising of particular opinions. Further forcing a model of law more akin to the German system of being able to do what the law says you can and anything else is illegal, rather than the US/UK model which is the reverse.
When I ask for better laws I personally want a mature broadening; a re-evaluation in the light of experience. Better still for the law to retract its (overly-specific) claws and become more abstract (in the light of maturity/experience), thereby covering more with less (as you also suggest later).
Mid-life crises are not always a bad thing. And that, I think, is what the US and UK are facing.
From a programmers perspective the change MS made was actually quite marvellous. I reckon it was only bloody-mindedness and pride on the part of Gosling or Sun that didn't see MS's change adopted into standard Java. I would have chosen to program in Java if MS had also re-oriented Java's truly horrible exception model (checked exceptions; nasty!).
In my view MS, when it has "embraced" the competition, has almost always produced a most excellent refinement of their competitors idea (IE is an excellent example). They called almost be called a model of the civilised jungle.
Perhaps the solution to the law problem is to unify the French system (spirit of the law) with the Anglo-Saxon (letter of the law), which are usually considered mutually exclusive, but I bet that one day a holy genius will demonstrate that they are not.
In classical christian theology (I'm a thomistic catholic) its all about union. Apply union and the solution presents itself. Its rather like magnetic poles; they are only mutually exlusive in a narrow sense - but really they are two distinctions of the same singularity. Quite unlike opposites of absence, like light and darkness, good and evil (the absence of good), a union of which results in compromise (oh horror!), instead of a balance.
The gin is going to my head, so here I'll stop.
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